Varlamov gets 1st star in his first win over the Habs

The rookie netminder Simeon Varlamov earned the first star of the game for his stellar performance in Montreal against the Canadiens making 32 stops on 33 shots to make sure the Caps won this 2-1 game.  Not the easiest place to make your debut for sure, but Varlamov appeared calm and survived 8 power play attempts, including a 4 minute high sticking penalty on Alex Ovechkin.  The Caps defense helped him out which is nice.  Regardless, that's an impressive performance for a raw talent, but still developing goalie who's only played 13 games in the AHL and 1 preseason game for the Caps on the smaller North American ice sheet.  

I had to watch this game on my laptop as I was out of town so it was tough for me to fully appreciate Varlamov's performance on such a small screen.  But, I'm thrilled for him and excited to be a Caps fan knowing he's most likely the future goalie and will be for a long time. 

The other amazing news from last night is that Michael Nylander actually scored a goal.  I couldn't believe he actually shot the puck, but he was standing right in front of the night so, thank you, Michael.  It was the game winning goal.

The bad news Sergei Fedorov and Tyler Sloan left the game with injuries.  Nicklas Backstrom also left but with a migraine as reported by Tarik today in the Washington Post.

Since it was impossible for me to discern the highlights and lowlights by watching the game on a laptop, I'll skip that for this post.

Caps play at the New York Islanders on Tuesday.  It'll be nice if they can put together two road wins in a row.

Let's go Caps!